Emeritus Professor David Boud

Biography

Professor Boud has been involved in research and teaching development in adult, higher and professional education for over 30 years and has contributed extensively to the literature. Previously he held the positions of Dean of the University Graduate School, Head of the School of Adult and Language Education and Associate Dean (Research and Development) in the Faculty of Education. Prior to his appointment at UTS he was Professor and Foundation Director of the Professional Development Centre at the University of New South Wales.

He is a 2007 Australian Learning and Teaching Council Senior Fellow and in 2010 completed the project associated with this 'Student assessment for learning in and after courses’. See Assessment Futures.

Research Interests

Professor Boud is interested in how people learn and what can be done to foster their learning. This has taken him to a variety of settings in adult, higher and professional education and prompted an examination of many practices and processes. This has ranged from new forms of curriculum design (problem-based learning, negotiated learning and work-based learning) to learning practices (use of reflection, reciprocal peer learning) and assessment (self-assessment, sustainable assessment). A continuing theme of these explorations has been the role of the learner and how learning might be fostered. This has taken Professor Boud to developing models for learning from experience and the role of reflection in learning, and to examining the role of those who intervene in learning whether or not they are identified as teachers.

Currently, Professor Boud is interested in the challenges faced by formal education from new modes of knowledge production, learning in organizations, new practices in doctoral education and the role of assessment for long-term learning.

Most of Professor Boud's teaching has been in the postgraduate area. It has included:

Experience-based learning, Adult learning and program development, Researching educational practice, Analysing professional practice, Dissertation design and development. He has also supervised many research students.

Abstract: This chapter examines how insights from workplace learning research might be used to problematize some common understandings of higher education practice and lead to new ones. It begins by outlining features of the changing higher education context that have implications for how we might think differently about traditional higher education. Following this it contrasts practices in higher education with several themes drawn from two decades of workplace learning research (e.g. learning as embedded, situated; social, and formed through practice). It focuses on specific higher education practices (both existing and possible) that have potential to meet new and different learning needs of the changing student population. Implications centre around four ideas. The first is that being a 'learner' is not as powerful as being a producer. The second is that the tasks students engage in should not be seen as isolated from the broader context they will be entering on graduation. The third idea is that assessment needs to be appropriated by learners, and finally, students must more actively construct their own learning.

Boud, D. 2014, 'Shifting views of assessment: From secret teachers' business to sustaining learning' in Advances and Innovations in University Assessment and Feedback, pp. 13-31.View/Download from: UTS OPUS

Jolly, B. & Boud, D.J. 2013, 'Written feedback: what is it good for and how can we do it well?' in Boud, D. & Molloy, E. (eds), Feedback in Higher and Professional Education, Routledge, Oxon, pp. 104-124.View/Download from: UTS OPUS

Almost all students and teachers spend a vast amount of time writing. Paradoxically, in the age of electronic media, \VIi.ring, emails or 'texting' has replaced many other forms of communication, so when the opportunity arises to give or receive feedback there is a high likelihood that it will be delivered in written form. There are great differences in what and how we write. For example, as young researchers, we might spend a week or tw-o blitzing out a long rambling article. Then, in the struggle to communicate to others, over the following many months, we hone the paper into something that somebody else would like to read, using many self-feedback loops. This type of auto-feedback forms the major part of most academics' experience of feedback. Finally when we ran out of our own resources, or when our writing showed visible improvement, we sent it to someone else for judgement or formal feedback. Sometimes that person was the editor of the intended journal, and sometimes it was just a colleague, Either way, there was usually a long wait, and the results were altogether unpredictable. 'iI1ith all this writing being done, and with the amount of self-feedback that we generate, one might think that: a) a lot of feedback to others gets delivered via writing; b) guidance about how to give written feedback is pretty well formulated; c) this guidance is underpinned by substantive research on written feedback.

We all experience the influence of feedback in our lives and in our work. We are told that we can't park our car in a particular space, and we choose to go elsewhere. Our students tell us that they don't understand a point we have made in class and we find another way of explaining it. We get referees' comments on a paper submitted to a journal, we make revisions and resubmit it. These are familiar examples of everyday feedback. Feedback is a normal part of our lives; it is ubiquitous. If it seems to work so normally and so regularly, why then does it appear to be so troublesome in higher and professional education? Why is it that students complain more about feedback than almost any others parts of their courses? Is what we are doing so wrong, or are there other explanations of what is rapidly becoming a crisis of concern?

Feedback has proved problematic for individual learners, for teachers and for institutions. The lack and availability of it is criticised by students. Teachers bemoan the burden of marking. And leaders of educational institutions wonder why, of all things they have to deal with, feedback creates so much difficulty. There is no shortage of proposals and recipes for action. Is it just a matter of seriously attending to these and ensuring that they are put into practice? If only it were clear what feedback was and how it could be implemented well, then the problems should severely diminish. The fact that so much has been written about the topic and so much energy has been expended without resolving the problem suggests more of the same is not enough. So much has been invested in the idea that it can't be wished away; it has to be confronted. New ways of thinking about feedback are needed. A clear view of current assumptions and practice is needed as a starting point, but it is also important to step back and examine feedback in its wider context to see what it promises and what it might be reasonably be expected to do.

As the earlier chapters have shown, there is now considerable research-based knowledge about feedback for learning in a wide variety of modes and contexts. There are also a vast number of different ways of undertaking feedback that have been used. Many of these authors challenge common taken-for-granted assumptions about what feedback is and how it should be conducted. However, even if the challenge is accepted and Qllr notion of feedback reframed, there is the problem of choice of particular strategies and approaches. On what basis should feedback strategies be selected for any given purpose in any given situation? At what stage is it appropriate that such decisions are made? Who should be involved in them? And, should these decisions change as learners advance along the novice to expert spectrum in their field of study? This chapter brings together the themes of the book to focus on the design and choice of feedback approaches. It seeks to provide a summary resource to aid decision-making. It starts by revie"Wing some of the main messages that have arisen so far and mOves to what needs to be done to establish a program climate conducive to healthy feedback practices and produce a particular feedback episode. Rather than provide a reference-rich account, we have used our o\\tTI judgement about what has been presented earlier to generate key decision po~ts in planning for learning and the issues that need to be considered at each pomt. We do not seek to be prescriptive but to raise questions about what might be considered at each stage of thinking about a program. The chapter ends by reflecting on how organisational and dispositional changes might be made to move from a conventional view of feedback to one that has a serious influence on learning.

In this chapter, we connect and challenge two conventional assumptions in workplace learning research and organizational change research: that learning can be understood isolated from its interrelationship with work and that managing change is a process to revert organizations back to desirable forms of stability. We believe the nexus of learning and change in organizational work lies in unpacking the apparent paradox between how work practices regularly get carried forward (persist and perpetuate), yet also adapted (change) by workers to achieve the purposes of work. We draw significantly from the theoretical writings of Schatzki and argue that practice theory has much to contribute in conceptualizing more dynamic views of organizing, work and learning. We illustrate our use of Schatzkian concepts by discussing how workers at an Australian utility company using safety practices to learn how to become new kinds of safe workers.

Considerations of employee-driven innovation generally posit innovation as an advance in the substantive products, services and/or processes of an organisation. More broadly, innovation can also refer to anything that seeks to do something new, or address a concern that would not otherwise be met. Employees contribute to innovation in many ways: they can generate and/or implement a product or service; they can generate and/or implement new technologies; however, they can also influence the ways in which an organisation adapts and evolves over time in more subtle ways through instigating work practice changes. Although these more subtle changes may not appear under the banner of organisational innovation they nevertheless contribute to the creation and application of new organisational processes, practices and outputs. They may also never be part of the conscious and explicit agenda of the organisation or be something that managers have a strong role in initiating. However, their effects can be cumulative and substantial.

Practice-based education is establishing itself as a new term in higher education in Australia. It is used not only to encompass those elements of professional education that have traditionally taken place in a practice setting (e.g. in the areas of clinical placement in health and practice teaching in education), but also a dimension of any higher education program that engages students with the practice of whatever students study. The questions to be considered though are: does the adoption of this term signify a new approach, or is it merely a rebadging of longstanding activities within a new discourse? Even if it is only a relatively minor reworking of existing ideas, does it allow the possibility of new kinds of pedagogical and curriculum practices to emerge from a new configuration? Can this shift become the starting point for a more critical approach that brings university courses more fully into the world of professional activity?

Notions of reflection and reflective practice have hecome well established in professional education since the late 1980s. While some applications of these 1deas m courses have distorted their original intentions and taken an excessively instrumental. approach to their use, they have nevertheless provided useful frammg deVICes to help conceptualise some important processes in profeSSIOnal learnmg. One of the reasons why they were readily accepted is because they sh:u:ed an individualised view of learning with the very program?, e~ In whIch they were used. In the 2000s we are, however, seeing a q,:,esrlOO!ng ?f an overly individualistic view of learning previously associated with reflectIOn, a f~us on the nature of professional practice and an exploratlOn of alternatIve conceptions chat view reflection within the context of serrings wh~ch necessarily have more of a group- or team-based work oneoratlOn. ThIS chapter questions whether we should reject earlier views of reflection, rehabilitate them to capture their previous potential or move to new ways of tegarding reflection that are more in keeping with what we know abour the context of practice

In this chapter I argue that assessment should be oriented towards developing practice, even when the particularities of practice and the specific contexts for practice are not known. Indeed, a future-orientation is especially required when the specific demands of practice are unknown and unknowable. Assessment needs to do more than cel1iry; it also has an essential educational role that, if neglected, means that students are not prepared for the uncertainties they face. The emphasis needs to be on the processes of acquisition of knowledge and skills and how learners can develop their own capabilities and those of others. Such an orientation has profound implications for the way assessment in higher education is conducted, both in initial and continuing professional education.

Assessment in higher education is being challenged by a multiplicity of demands. The activities predominantly used examinations, assignments and other kinds of tests have emerged from within an educational tradition lightly influenced by ideas from psychological measurement, but mostly influenced by longstanding cultural practices in the academic disciplines. Assessment in higher education has for a long time been a process influenced more from within the university rather than externally. It has typically been judged in terms of how well it meets the needs of educational institutions for selection and allocation of places in later courses or research study, and whether it satisfies the expectations of the almost totally exclusive academic membership of examination committees. Within courses, it has been judged by how well it meets the needs of those teaching. In more recent times it is judged in terms of how well it addresses the learning outcomes for a course

It is well recognised that changes in the contemporary world demand that professionals continuously learn. Often this continual professional learning takes the shape of formal courses, seminars and other obviously educational events. The starting point of this paper is an acknowledgement that people also learn in the day-to-day practices that constitute their work. Work can be understood as a bundle of practices that are typically shared by most people employed in that profession. For engineers, and experienced engineers in particular, an example might be attending design review meetings, toolbox talks and or carrying out site walks. In this paper we posit that these practices afford important opportunities for professional learning.

BACKGROUND Recent national and international research has identified a number of gaps in the development of engineering graduate capabilities: one is the real-world problem-solving ability, which is linked to a lack of integration of theoretical and practical knowledge (ASEE 2009; King,2008; Royal Academy of Engineering, 2006; Sheppard, Macatanga, Colby & Sullivan 2009; Male, Bush & Chapman 2009; Walther & Radcliffe 2007). Another is written (and spoken) communication (King, 2008; Male, Bush & Chapman 2011). There is strong evidence to indicate that these gaps occur in part as a result of a predominance of engineering curricula in universities which emphasise knowledge acquisition, and the prevailing assessment tasks that focus learning on atomised pieces of knowledge. Such an approach encourages surface learning approaches, resulting in graduates who may lack the integrated knowledge required for engineering practice and who have limited communication capabilities. PURPOSE There is, however, a body of research that suggests deep approaches to learning in the disciplines can be achieved through particular kinds of writing that provide the opportunity to explore concepts which link theory and practice, thus developing both writing ability and integrated understanding. This paper presents the preliminary phase of a study to investigate the strategic use of discursive writing to foster both a deeper approach to learning and enhanced written communication skills in the engineering curriculum. The study focuses on discursive writing as a means of providing students with the opportunity to explore the theories and concepts that they are learning, in order to integrate knowledge from different parts of the curriculum and to link the theories to engineering practice. DESIGN/METHOD In order to investigate how writing is currently practised and assessed in Australian engineering curricula, a preliminary analysis of written assessment tasks in a unit of study in the mechani...

This paper reports on the first phase of an Australian inter-disciplinary partnership study concerned with professional learning of experienced engineers. It is a theoretically motivated, qualitative paper that aims to produce detailed descriptions of professional learning that arise within professional engineering work. The paper uses practice theory to conceptualise professional learning. By using &acirc;practices&acirc; as the units of analysis, professional learning is understood as an integral part of everyday work practices that is embodied, relational and material rather than an individual attribute. The paper concludes by suggesting that practice theory may provide organisations with an alternative perspective of workplace learning, inviting them to reconsider how professional learning is acknowledged, rewarded and fostered in organisations.

This paper reports on the first phase of an Australian inter-disciplinary partnership study concerned with professional learning of experienced engineers. It is a theoretically motivated, qualitative paper that aims to produce detailed descriptions of professional learning that arise within professional engineering work. The paper uses practice theory to conceptualise professional learning. By using `practices as the units of analysis, professional learning is understood as an integral part of everyday work practices that is embodied, relational and material rather than an individual attribute. The paper concludes by suggesting that practice theory may provide organisations with an alternative perspective of workplace learning, inviting them to reconsider how professional learning is acknowledged, rewarded and fostered in organisations

Boud, D.J. & Rooney, D.L. 2010, 'The role of adult educators: more than the grin on the Cheshire Cat?', 40th Annual SCUTREA Conference, Annual SCUTREA Conference, 6-8 July 2010, University of Warwick, Coventry, University of Warwick, University of Warwick, Coventry, pp. 1-7.View/Download from: UTS OPUS

The point we explore in this paper, is how can we conceptualise our role in adult education when =the field` itself is so diverse? Moreover, it is =curious and curiouser to think about our role in =the field` before we can actually articulate what the field is? Is it like the grin on Lewis Carroll`s Cheshire cat, or do we still have a tangible practice to pursue?

Rooney, D.L. & Boud, D.J. 2009, 'No name, no value: acknowledging the neglected others in lifelong learning in the workplace', Proceedings of 5th International Conference, Lifelong Learning Revisited, Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, University of Stirling, United Kingdom, pp. 1-6.

Opportunities for expanding what is known about workplace learning can be missed when the focus of research remains on learners alone. Rather, accounts of learning at work need to acknowledge not only those who learn but who else may be implicated. Such accounts would require a wider lens that notices the work practices and relationships that contribute to learning, and in particular those involving the counterparties to those learning. We cannot talk about learning practices without also naming those who enact the practices. Hence, in this paper we intend `talking up the role of these others, or as others suggest `word (Richardson, 1994: 923) the practices of learning at work and those enacting them into existence. To do this requires looking beyond (or perhaps more accurately, amongst) the learners, as well as toward the workplace relationships and practices that provide opportunities for learning.

Rooney, D.L. & Boud, D.J. 2008, 'Lifelong teaching: should 'the teacher' scare adult educators?', Proceedings of the 36th Annual Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults (SCUTREA), SCUTREA 2008 38th Annual Connference: Whither adult education in the learning paradigm?, The University Copy Shop, University of Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh, pp. 460-467.

In tune with lifelong learning discourses, adult learning is now understood to be anywhere and everywhere in classrooms, in workplaces, in community settings and indeed in everyday life. This distribution of learning sites is accompanied by changing understandings of the relationship of formal and informal learning and of the role of adult education and adult educators. These changes in turn are reshaping learning theories and practices together with redirecting the research focus of adult educators. We suggest that this redirection can be a useful one. By researching learning across contexts, researchers are better able to engage with various kinds of pedagogic practices and therefore can contribute better to the debates and critiques of the changing relationship between education, training and learning.

This paper draws empirical data to explore how workers in one organization are 'inventing' and continue to develop what constitutes their work, ie making up their jobs. Doing so troubles accounts of common work-practices that pre-suppose stable organizational contexts, pre-designed jobs and agent- less workers.

Chappell, C.S., Boud, D.J., Scheeres, H.B. & Rooney, D.L. 2007, 'Working Out work: Integrated Development Practices in Organisations', The times they are a-changin' researching transitions in lifelong learning, The times they are a-changin' researching transitions in lifelong learning, CRLL, Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning University of Stirling Scotland, pp. 1-7.

The paper reports on the initial findings of the ARC project Beyond Training & Learning Integrated Development Projects in Organisations

The growth of knowledge work and the construction of the knowledge worker (Drucker 1993) have activated widespread interest in learning in organisations. In this contemporary context, investigations and characterisations of learning (at) work and work as learning, formal versus informal learning and so on, have drawn learning out of its educational, training or institutionally-oriented 'home' to situate it within business practices. New manifestations of learning can be linked to organisational practices such as, for example, coaching and mentoring, and perhaps less obviously to practices of performance management, teamwork, career development, and the like. These organisational practices are creating new meanings and understandings for learning at work and are therefore producing different learning experiences, and workers, from those of the past. We are interested in how and if these organisational practices promote learning while they simultaneously enact organisational functions.

Rooney, D.L. & Boud, D.J. 2006, 'Just another meeting: exploring inter/alia cultural tensions of researching everyday learning at work', Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults (SCUTREA), Inter-Cultural perspectives on research into adult learning: a global dialogue, SCUTREA, Leeds, UK, pp. 343-349.

An important rationale for higher education is that it equips students for learning beyond the point of graduation. This paper considers the role that assessment plays in this. It suggests we need to take a new perspective on assessment: assessment to promote learning throughout life. It focuses on ideas that can be used to contribute to the construction of assessment practices and on wider implications for course design. It concludes by exploring barriers to acceptance of this perspective and how they might be addressed.

Boud, D.J. & Lee, A. 1999, 'Promoting Research Development through Writing Groups', Proceedings of the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference, Australian Association for Research in Education, AARE, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 1-10.

The development of the research potential of university staff has been given less attention than many other aspects of professional development, particularly teaching development. Yet there is an important need for the development of staff in the research role in the light of growth over the past ten years of higher education and changes to the organisation of the sector in both Australia and the UK. This paper examines one strategy for research development: the use of writing groups. It argues that writing is best seen as a starting point, rather than an endpoint, of the research process and hence that fostering academic writing is a useful place to do research development work. The paper provides details of the use of a number of writing groups over three years in a Faculty and explores the responses of leaders and participants. It identifies factors which appear to be important in the successful use of this strategy and focuses on the contextual conditions required for initiatives of this kind to be effectively implemented.

This paper asks the question: do people with different levels of research productivity and identification as a researcher think of research differently? It discusses a study that differentiated levels of research productivity among English and Australian academics working in research-intensive environments in three broad discipline areas: science, engineering and technology; social science and humanities; and medicine and health sciences. The paper explores the different conceptions of research held by these academics in terms of their levels of research productivity, their levels of research training, whether they considered themselves an active researcher and a member of a research team, and their disciplinary differences.

As the field of health care simulation matures, new questions about appropriate pedagogy are emerging which present challenges to research and practices. This has implications for how we investigate and deliver effective simulations, how we conceive effectiveness, and how we make decisions about investment in simulation infrastructure. In this article, we explore two linked challenges that speak to these wider concerns: student diversity and large cohorts. We frame these within contemporary simulation practices and offer recommendations for research and practice that will account for students' varying cultural expectations about learning and clinical practice in the Australian context.

This paper presents the preliminary results of a multi-phased qualitative investigation of continuing professional learning. The study focused on the identification of common engineering practices that contribute to learning. This paper examines a particular practice, that of the site-walk. It draws on practice theory, an emerging set of conceptual resources used in workplace learning research. Data was elicited via qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups and site visits with experienced engineers employed in a large Australian engineering company. It was analysed using the lens of practice theory. The findings suggest that site-walks, while an everyday practice for engineers, are also highly learning-rich. This understanding has implications for continual professional learning, and for educators of novice engineers.

Can extended opportunities for self-assessment over time help students develop the capacity to make better judgements about their work? Using evidence gathered through students' voluntary self-assessment of their performance with respect to assessment tasks in two different disciplines at two Australian universities, the paper focuses on the effects of sequences of units of study and the use of different types of assessment task (written, oral, analysis, and project) in the development of student judgement. Convergence between student criteria-based gradings of their own performance in units of study and those allocated by tutors was analysed to explore the calibration of students' judgement over time. First, it seeks to replicate analyses from an earlier smaller-scale study to confirm that students' judgements can be calibrated through continuing opportunities for self- assessment and feedback. Second, it extends the analysis to coherently designed sequences of units of study and explores the effects of different types of assessment. It finds that disruptive patterns of assessment within a sequence of subjects can reduce convergence between student and tutor judgements.

This paper explores a dilemma in continuing professional learning: the way learning is typically inscribed in continuing professional education (CPE) frameworks differs from that elicited from practice. It examines these differences in relation to both different underlying assumptions about learning and varying epistemological perspectives as well as the different purposes of CPE frameworks of professional bodies and organisations. It suggests that the dominant adoption of narrower conceptions of learning in professional organisations' frameworks ignores understandings about work and learning emerging from recent research in the field of workplace learning and focuses on a view that may privilege formal provision. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions in developing alternative continuing professional learning frameworks.

The preparation of future professionals for practice is a key focus of higher education institutions. Among a range of approaches is the use of simulation peda- gogies. While simulation is often justified as a direct bridge between higher education and professional practice, this paper questions this easy assumption. It develops a conceptually driven argument to cast new light on simulation and its unarticulated potential in professional formation. The argument unfolds in, and is illustrated via, three accounts of a simulation event in an Australian undergraduate nursing program. This begins with a familiar approach, moves to one that problematizes this through a focus on disruption, culminating in a third that draws on socio-material theorisations. Here, simulation is conceived as emergent, challenging stable notions of fidelity, common in simulation literature. New possibilities of simulation in the production of agile practitioners and learners in practice are surfaced. This paper extends and enriches thinking by providing distinctive new ways of understanding simulation and the relationship it affords between education and professional practice, and by illuminating the untapped potential of simulation for producing agile practitioners.

Despite increasing research and scholarship in the area of academic development in recent years, it remains an under-theorised field of endeavour. The paper proposes that academic developers take a view on what constitutes academic work and see it as a form of professional practice. It discusses the features of practice theory that illuminate professional practice and identifies three foci for the application of these ideas within academic development: practice development, fostering learning-conducive work and deliberately locating activity within practice. It also suggests that academic development be viewed as a practice and points to features within its own traditions on which to build.

Student feedback is a contentious and confusing issue throughout higher education institutions. This paper develops and analyses two models of feedback: the first is based on the origins of the term in the disciplines of engineering and biology. It posit

International research collaboration raises questions about how groups from different national and institutional contexts can work together for common ends. This paper uses issues that have arisen in carrying out the first stage of an international resea

Seeking a different angle on feedback in clinical education: the learner as seeker, judge and user of performance information Seeking a different angle on feedback in clinical education: the learner as seeker, judge and user of performance information

One of the implicit aims of higher education is to enable students to become better judges of their own work. This paper examines whether students who voluntarily engage in self-assessment improve in their capacity to make those judgements. The study utilises data from a web-based marking system that provides students with the opportunity to assess themselves on each criterion for each assessment task throughout a programme of study. Student marks were compared with those from tutors to plot changes over time. The findings suggest that overall students judgements do converge with those of tutors, but that there is considerable variation across achievement levels, with weaker students showing little improvement. Whilst the study is limited by the exigencies of voluntary participation and thus consequential gaps in the data set, it shows how judgement over time can be demonstrated and points to the potential for more systematic interventions to improve students judgements. It also illustrates the use of the web-based marking and feedback software (ReView) that has considerable utility in aiding self-assessment research.

Many professions have requirements for professional development activities to ensure continuing registration or membership. These commonly focus on participation in a limited range of activities. This paper questions the assumptions behind such approache

Although there have been increasing attempts to involve undergraduate students in conducting research, a pivotal moment when students engage in knowledge production is during honours programmes. Honours programmes, particularly those in Australia, seek to develop students capacity to engage in higher order thinking that may lead to knowledge production. This transition is facilitated through advanced disciplinary knowledge, research training and a research project. However, there is a pedagogical tension between requiring students to engage in this deeper level of inquiry at the same time as they complete a heavy knowledge acquisition load. This paper explores how a number of disciplines in Australia balance these elements of the honours curricula. It argues that the combination of these curriculum goals can make it difficult for students to apply the knowledge they have gained in advanced disciplinary and research training courses to their research project work. This has serious implications for honours programmes.

The paper examines influences of doctoral study and structured early career interventions on academic work. It uses evidence from a survey in six Australian universities (n1158) to explore academics engagement with research and teaching development. It regards universities as social situations that are ambiguous, presenting conflicting opportunities for growth and development and the pursuit of personal objectives. Academics emphases on different aspects of academic work involve complex responses that are subject to many influences. It shows that doctoral work may avoid developing key skills that academics need and that the extent to which doctoral study prepares academics for different aspects of their role is different in different disciplines and institutions. It also shows that the conduct of academics in their major roles is little influenced by the training and development they engage in. The paper discusses the survey findings in terms of what constrains and what enables academics to take up particular development opportunities. It argues that to understand academic practice, analysis of how organisational influences are interpreted is needed.

A new approach to assessment design is considered through the process of developing a set of capabilities for osteopathic practice that starts from an understanding of a concept of 'practice' applicable to real, situated osteopathic healthcare. Appropria

The Honours undergraduate degree in Australia is unlike that in most other countries. It has taken on a particular significance as a qualification, as a pathway to and a pre-requisite for direct entry into doctoral programs. This paper explores the outco

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of "learning" through what we have termed "integrated development practices". These are common organisational practices that both enhance organisational effectiveness and contribute to organisational and employee learning. <B>Design/methodology/approach</B> - The paper analyses the ways in which learning and being a learner were talked about and enacted with regard to one of the integrated development practices identified in a study of four different organisations - safety practices, and how learning and being a learner regarding safety were legitimate in one of the organisations. Data are drawn from semi-structured interviews with members of a variety of workgroups in one major division of the organisation. Findings - Interviewees' responses reflected that learning was fully embedded as an accepted part of a necessary function of the organisation. This use of a learning discourse is discussed in the light of findings from an earlier study on informal learning at work that suggested that learning and the identity of being a learner were sometimes resisted in the everyday culture of work.Originality/value - Using the theorisations of practice of Schatzki and the lifelong education framework of Delors the paper discusses the implications of these findings to examine when it is acceptable to articulate learning as part of work and be identified as a learner at work.

Noting the ever-increasing encroachment of discourses and practices from the private sector on public education providers, this paper argues that such organizations exist within competing sets of differences that seek to define and fix the meaning of 'education' and 'business'. We report on fieldwork conducted in an adult education college in Sydney. In the Australian context these colleges are referred to as community colleges and their history is one based in a strong liberal tradition. Utilising Judith Butler's idea of 'drag' we consider the effects of changing modes of governance in the college with specific reference to the stories told to us about it. Our discussion suggests that the organisation was caught between identifying itself with a masculinised discourse of business and a discourse of community cast as its feminised other. In navigating between these, the college was seen to perform as a 'drag king' an organisation performing the masculine but in so doing, undoing its gendered status. This leads us to suggest that the incorporation of business and market-based discourse into the management of community education is something that is actively resisted and undermined through such forms of gendered transgression. We conclude by proposing that this organization's capacity to perform drag is a contributing factor to its overall success, and particularly in an economic climate where many not-for-profit organisations are floundering.

The purpose of this paper is to challenge models of workplace learning that seek to isolate or manipulate a limited set of features to increase the probability of learning. Such models typically attribute learning (or its absence) to individual engagement, manager expectations or organizational affordances and are therefore at least implicitly causative. In contrast, we discuss the contributions of complexity theory principles such as emergence and novelty that suggest that learning work is more a creative and opportunistic process that emerges from contextualized interactional understandings among actors. Using qualitative case study methods, we discuss the experiences of workers in two organizations asked to 'act up' in their managers' role to ensure work continuity. We believe the differences in how workers take up these opportunities result from a complex combination of situational factors that generate invitational patterns signalled from and by various understandings and interactions among actors doing collective work.

Learning in workplaces is always mediated through talk. It is tempting for management to seek to utilise everyday talk as part of learning and therefore enhance productivity. This paper examines the responses of workers to interventions that aim to formalise informal conversations at work as part of an explicit workplace learning strategy. It draws on interviews with managers and workers in a public sector organisation to examine their experience of these practices. The paper raises questions about whether interventions in the name of fostering informal learning may well be hindering what they seek to promote.

There is growing interest in the application of citizen participation within all areas of public sector service development, where it is increasingly promoted as a significant strand of post-neoliberal policy concerned with re-imagining citizenship and more participatory forms of citizen/consumer engagement. The application of such a perspective within health services, via co-production, has both beneficial, but also problematic implications for the organisation of such services, for professional practice and education. Given the disappointing results in increasing consumer involvement in health services via 'choice' and 'voice' participation strategies, the question of how the more challenging approach of co-production will fare needs to be addressed. The article discusses the possibilities and challenges of system-wide co-production for health. It identifies the discourse and practice contours of co-production, differentiating co-production from other health consumer-led approaches. Finally, it identifies issues critically related to the successful implementation of co-production where additional theorisation and research are required.

This paper takes up understandings of organisations where practices constitute and frame past and present work, as well as future work practice possibilities. Within this view, work practices, and thus organisations,are both perpetuated and varied through employees' enactments of work. Using a practice lens, we are particularly interested in the ways workers simultaneously maintain and alter practices in their workplace' we characterise this as re-making one's job. This perspective challenges ways in which managers often depict jobs and everyday work' as rational, linear and easily describable. We suggest that workers at various levels of responsibility contribute more to the formation of organisational practices than is often assumed. The processes of re-making jobs and remaking organisational practices create tensions that we posit as sites for learning.

Project work has been a common feature of undergraduate degree programmes for many years. While it has been named in a variety of ways, it typically involves students undertaking a substantial learning activity that is partly self-initiated and managed. More recently, programmes organised around the idea of work-based learning partnerships have emerged. These can be regarded as programmes that rely on significant amounts of work-based project work. This paper examines the implications of practices in these new programmes for project advising more generally. It argues that the conception of the role of academics in project work needs to change from one focused on project supervision to one of learning adviser. It identifies key features of this practice and discusses differences in advising from one context to another. It suggests that the activities in which academics engage need to be reappraised and that the skills and knowledge of those acting in the role of adviser be extended.

Research education has been dominated in recent years by policy- driven preoccupations with doctoral completions, funding and contributions to the economy. This has led universities to focus on enhanced institutional support for research degrees, with an

Higher education institutions are responding to globalisation in various ways. This study describes and analyses challenges encountered in a recent case of global collaboration between four universities on different continents in developing a web-based m

Assessment practices in higher education institutions tend not to equip students well for the processes of effective learning in a learning society. The purposes of assessment should be extended to include the preparation of students for sustainable assessment. Sustainable assessment encompasses the abilities required to undertake those activities that necessarily accompany learning throughout life in formal and informal settings. Characteristics of effective formative assessment identified by recent research are used to illustrate features of sustainable assessment. Assessment acts need both to meet the specific and immediate goals of a course as well as establishing a basis for students to undertake their own assessment activities in the future. To draw attention to the importance of this, the idea that assessment always has to do double duty is introduced.

Universities are at a pivotal point in their history and are undergoing dramatic changes. One of the more significant of these changes is the move towards instrumental programmes of learning, as manifest for instance in workplace and work-based learning. This paper argues that this trend threatens the existence of the liberal university, where knowledge is pursued predominantly for its own sake. The paper identifies four dominant discourses in higher education and suggests that these discourses co-exist with one another, and are sometimes dominant, at other times recessive. It argues that the trend to a post-industrialised labour market has seen the emergence of a vocationalised discourse in higher education, which stresses the instrumental at the expense of the liberal.

Reflection and the promotion of reflective practice have become popular features of the design of educational programmes. This has often led to learning being more effectively facilitated. However, alongside these positive initiatives have grown more dis

The negotiated learning contract is potentially one of the most useful tools available to those interested in promoting flexible approaches to learning. A learning contract is able to address the diverse learning needs of different students and may be de

The negotiated learning contract is potentially one of the most useful tools available to those interested in promoting flexible approaches to learning. A learning contract is able to address the diverse learning needs of different students and may be designed to suit a variety of purposes both on course and in the workplace. However, contracts need to be carefully introduced and supported and problems can arise if they are used in inflexible ways. This paper draws upon research conducted into the use of learning contracts to identify key issues which need to be considered before using them, and to suggest ways in which they may be developed. The authors make several recommendations for introducing contract learning and identify different styles of contracting in academic courses.

Much time and effort has gone into trying to demonstrate an empirical link between research activity and teaching performance. In general, the correlations between these factors have been shown to be low. This paper argues that the attempt to find such a

The paper describes an approach to assessment in which students create a comprehensive and analytical summary of their learning in a given subject. The self-assessment schedule, as it is called, has been used in contexts in which there is an emphasis on

A frequently stated aim of physiotherapy educational programs is to produce graduates capable of, and wishing to pursue, lifelong learning. To help achieve this goal, curricula commonly include the promotion of independent or self-directed learning. This paper supports the need for developing self-directed learning, orientation and skills and argues that this can be best achieved by bringing these skills into the mainstream of tertiary education programs such as physiotherapy, rather than isolating them to specific subjects. The challenge of mainstreaming is to appreciate how the basic ideas of self-directed learning can be incorporated into all areas of the curriculum. This paper presents strategies, issues and problems associated with mainstreaming of self-directed learning.

A method of incorporating self and peer marking in an undergraduate electronics subject is described and discussed. Similar methods could probably be used in other technical subjects. Its educational benefits are: greatly improved feedback to the students, additional reinforcement, and practice at self assessment. The method described has a high degree of student acceptance, and appears to produce reliable and valid marks. It can be incorporated into conventionally taught courses without disrupting teaching. The use of self and peer assessment in an isolated subject requires a great deal of attention to the details of the procedure, especially if it is to be part of the formal assessment in the subject. The procedure developed here requires the preparation of detailed model solutions and an extensive clerical procedure, but alternatives with a simpler clerical process are also possible. The nature and amount of the examination load on faculty is different when self and peer marking is used. For small classes it involves more work for faculty, but for large classes it reduces the work load. It is one of the few educational innovations that can do this, and at the same time have educational benefits.

`Building Research Supervision and Training in Australian Universities was undertaken with the aims of identifying existing higher degree research supervisor training provisions; identifying current and future needs of supervisors and making recommendations that assist universities in their ongoing development of effective higher degree research supervisor training.